The Concord City Council may have directed both the master developer and a labor consortium poised to begin development of the former Concord Naval Weapons Station property to work out their differences, but letters from both the developer and the unions indicate those talks may not be smooth.
The city has received separate letters – both dated Jan. 17 — from the developer Lennar and from the Contra Costa Building and Construction Trades Council.
And the key points of disagreement that led to an impasse being declared in October to reaching labor agreements for the weapons station remake (formally known as the Concord Community Reuse Project) appear to remain.
In its letter to the city, Lennar President Jonathan Jaffe said the extent of union labor called for by the Building Trades Council is unworkable financially.
“The city’s own expert conclusively found that the present demands of labor make the project infeasible,” Jaffe said in his company’s letter.
That city analysis, the letter states, shows using the trades council’s recommended proportion of union labor “could result in a negative rate of return” for the first phase of the reuse project.
Lennar officials have said that the difference between its own overall labor offer and the Building Trades Council’s overall request is about $546 million.
Bill Whitney, CEO of the building trades council, in his Jan. 17 letter reminded the city that it is the council that said the Reuse Project’s work should meet specific “Concord First” goals including 40 percent of labor hires being from Concord; an approved apprenticeship program; priority for veterans in hiring and training; and paying at least a “prevailing wage” to hired labor. The project labor agreements, Whitney said, should reflect that.
“There is no secret about our frustration with Lennar’s approach to the PLA negotiations thus far,” said Whitney, who also said his labor council would welcome the involvement of a mediator familiar with large-scale project labor agreements.
The reuse plan for the 5,000-acre weapons station site – one of the biggest such projects in Northern California – calls for building 13,000 residences, commercial and office space, a college campus and other amenities on 2,300 acres. Most of the development would be near the North Concord-Martinez BART station, just south of state Highway 4 on Concord’s northeast edge.
On Jan. 8, Kofi Bonner, co-COO of FivePoint-Lennar and of the reuse project, told the City Council he wasn’t sure the city’s request for Lennar and the unions to resume talks is a significant way to break the impasse. But beyond that, near the end of the second day of that long hearing, officials from both Lennar and the Building Trades Council agreed to meet soon, at a date to be determined.
He also said at that same hearing that if a suitable group of labor agreements can’t be reached, that Lennar would withdraw as master developer of the reuse project.
And in Jaffe’s Jan. 17 letter to Concord, he laid out four items he requests the city do by Feb. 11 “to move forward with the project:”
- Confirm that Lennar has acted in good faith with the city and the unions.
- Confirm that negotiating with one of more individual unions, rather than the trades council, will satisfy the city’s expectations for reaching out to labor.
- Confirm “prevailing wages” according to the overall agreement
- Approve a six-month extension of the overarching agreement to negotiate these various labor agreements.
In his own letter to the labor council’s Whitney, dated Jan. 16, Concord Mayor Tim McGallian implored the building trades council to work on an agreement with Lennar.
“While we appreciate that this may be an effort-intensive process, and that compromise on both sides will be required, we are confident that (Building Trades Council) and Lennar will craft a resolution that enables the (reuse) project to Progress.”
17 comments
Sounds like they want illegal aliens doing the job. Still think they should turn it into a redwood forest.
… and bring back the Tule Elk!
A redwood forest would be an AWESOME option!!
I don’t have a redwood tree planted but my neighbor planted one about twenty years ago and it is a full good looking tree about seventy feet tall. Every year getting larger. In Walnut Creek.
Post it back out and see if anyone else will take on all or part of the job? Divide the whole thing into 4 to 6 separate projects with different developers? Or just let the whole thing become parkland and give it to the state?
Absolutely
Perfect time to do something positive for climate change. Plant a forest and pull some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere. The development alternative leads to more traffic, reduced miles per gallon and more CO2.
Meanwhile at Seeno headquarters, directors twiddle their thumbs waiting for the green light to jump in and takeover when Lennar back’s down.
BFF Out!
Give it back to the Navy. We will probably be fighting China in 10 years and the military will wish they still had the property back.
In time of war (whether or not war has been declared by Congress), the military may requisition ANYTHING they wish!
Toxic waste still has not been completely removed from CNWS bunkers and the soil. Letting the military keep it is my favorite of the options, and also they should be required to reinstate security patrols, to plow wide fire breaks along all the perimeter fences and to remove ALL the toxic waste.
My own property shares a fence with CNWS. We have lived here almost 56 years. The Navy once cooperated with CalTrans and UC Davis to plant a sizable area of grassland with Monterey pine trees, their object being to determine whether such planting would be able to survive in highway medians without irrigation or other maintenance. As I recall, the experiment lasted about 20 years, at which time they cut every one of the trees down… even removed the roots… and then they let the earth return to grasses, weeds, and wild flowers.
Not many years afterward, my neighbors’ irrigated pines, firs, and coast redwoods started dying because of wood borer damage. (Correlation? I do not know.) One neighbor along my driveway saved
his row of gorgeous redwoods at great expense by having them
systemically treated so as to kill any borers.
Next there was an experimental project planting an even larger area with Eucalyptus trees. (We thought it strange because the terrible Berkeley/Oakland hills fire had already shown us the danger posed by such high-oil-content vegetation. The trees thrived, and we loved frequent sightings of the transplanted Tule elk herd.
Then came the traumatic removal of the elk herd, followed by the Avatar-styled, heavy-equipment destruction of so many of the trees (and despicably during spring nesting season for birds and squirrels…. no Great Horned Owls heard calling for many years thereafter).
I do not want to have ANY part of the open space opened to the “general public”, which also will include transients having access and definitely lighting campfires to cook and stay warm at night. Even the RISK of crime and wildfire is too great… especially to the multiple Concord neighborhoods adjacent to the base.
Please consider.
risk of wildfires and crime is too great to tolerate.
Sorta reminds me of a Mafia shake-down operation.
I hope the whole thing collapses and is stalled for a long long time. Concord needs to figure out how to repair the streets first before putting more traffic on them and then how to control the traffic flow through the city. As is Treat and Ygnacio seem to be way above capacity during the commute hours as is already Highway 4 isn’t much better along with down town and willow pass.
Yup. I’ve lived off Willow Pass near downtown for six years now. Every single day, from about 3:30-7:00pm, Willow Pass is completely gridlocked from highway 4 down to at least Park n’ Shop. That’s four miles of stop and go traffic, right through the heart of the city. If I’m not already at my home during that time, I might as well forget it. It has taken me more than half an hour just to get home from the mall.
I can’t imagine what Willow Pass would be like with another 50,000 residents and guests driving up and down it to get to the new neighborhood.
Has Lennar disclosed their financials yet? Apparently they don’t want to disclose how much money they will profiting. Paying higher union wages will cut into their scheme of things.
This whole property should e been divided up into more phases and bid on simultaneously so as not to waste anyone’s time.
Lennar should be booted out because they failed to observe and bid on the Concord First boundaries. I read their list for City Council to sign to be nothing less than a direct order to insulate Lennar and lend itself to litigation by Lennar against the City. Big Lennar needs to make Big Bottom Lines for a few people and I’ll bet they bid the job with cheap labor in mind along with some crumbs to the Unions to shut them up. They didn’t count on a United Labor Front with the labor coming from City of Concord and the payroll expense of a standard of living in The City of Concord. I’m sensing a threat by Lennar (to withdrawal) and I don’t think that’s the way a job should start even before construction. Because it will likely be the first of many hostage taking scenarios they will deal out (ie, taxpayers eating unforeseen conditions) over the life of the project.
Which one of you guinea pigs wants to put your child down on the soil & let them dig & build sand-castles & drink from the park water fountain?
Concord officials, let the project die and acknowledge the vast majority of your constituents don’t want a development of this size reducing their quality of life here!
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